Just Another Song
by rentheadperson525600
Summary: A one-shot inspired by Lucy Hale's song "Just Another Song," which is about hearing a song and having it bring back memories of a past relationship. Bet you can't guess what song Aria hears while she's living in Boston. Disclaimer: LOTS of flashbacks. To scenes in the show. It should go without saying that I don't own that dialogue or those parts of the story. Rated T for safety.


I was working on a presentation for work that I was supposed to deliver in the morning. My first solo presentation. And in the middle of everything, the power had flashed because of the stupid thunderstorm, and because my laptop was plugged in, it had shut off. I was so worried that my entire computer had fried. I waited ten minutes before attempting to turn it back on. It worked fine, but I found that literally none of my work for the past four hours had saved. I was going to have to start completely from scratch. It was already eleven, and I had to be at work at eight.

Well, looked like I was going to be pulling an all-nighter. I sighed and got up to go to the kitchen and make a pot of coffee. I was going to need it. I was barely awake now. How I was going to pull this off, I had no idea. I went to grab my iPod and it was dead. Of course. Well, at least iTunes still worked. I could just plug my headphones into my computer.

Ten minutes later, armed with coffee and a midnight snack, plus my noise-canceling headphones, I was ready to go. I made pretty good time, and three hours later, I was about three-quarters of the way done again. Thank God.

And then I heard it. The song I'd deleted from my iPod years ago but couldn't ever bring myself to delete from my computer. The one that ripped my heart out and broke it into a million pieces every time I heard it. The one that filled me with regret for ever leaving Rosewood and brought back every perfect memory and moment like it was just yesterday.

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 _I was sitting in Hollis Bar and Grille, and on top of the jet lag that still had me dragging, everywhere I turned, there was another missing poster for Alison. We all knew she was dead. But of course, everyone had to go through the motions. Act like there was still a chance she might be alive._

" _You all right down there?" I heard a male voice say._

 _I turned to look in the direction of the strange voice to find a really hot guy checking me out._

" _I'm a bit jet lagged," I explained. "I just got back from Europe."_

 _I wasn't about to go into the Alison thing. I'd just met this guy. And it was still hard to talk about._

" _Where in Europe?" he asked._

" _Iceland."_

" _I spent some time in Reykjavik before I went to Amsterdam. It's a great city," he said._

 _Clearly either just hitting on me or a figment of my imagination. How could anyone else in this small town have actually been to Iceland? But seriously. Damn._

" _So do you go to Hollis?" I asked._

" _Just graduated. I'm gonna start my first teaching job."_

 _God, that smile. It was too much._

" _I…I think I'd like to teach," I said. That was true._

 _A song came on the jukebox, one of my favorites. "Happiness" by The Fray._

" _God, I love this song," I said, almost without thinking._

" _B-26?"_

… _And almost before I knew what was happening, I was sitting on a bathroom counter making out with this guy. It was very unlike me, but if what had happened to Alison had taught me anything, it was that none of us is guaranteed a tomorrow and I needed to just live in the moment. Little did I know at the time I was going to see him again. Because his first teaching job was teaching my English class._

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 _We'd just gotten back from a bar where Ezra had done a reading of a short story. His college roommate, Hardy, had been there and clearly had said something to him about me. He wasn't telling me what it was, but all of a sudden, my age seemed to matter to him like it never had before._

" _Aria, let's get real," he said. "In theory, we are a lot more wrong than we are right."_

" _You want to be real?" I countered. "Forget about theory. What does it feel like when we're together?"_

" _Good," he admitted. "It feels…right. I want to be with you. I want to hang out in a bar, introduce you to my friends, split a plate of fries like everybody else, but I don't think we can do that. When I'm with you, I don't care about anybody else."_

" _So are you talking yourself into this or out of it?"_

" _Yes! No…no. Maybe…"_

 _I had to chuckle a little. He was clearly conflicted. But I wasn't. I knew this was risky. I knew it was dangerous and that we had to be careful. But I wanted it. I wanted him. And the thing was, even though he was conflicted about it, I knew when it came down to it, he wanted me too._

" _Let's review," I said. "Look, we're here now, and it's just the two of us. And it feels good. So let's not care together."_

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" _Thanks for meeting me," Ezra said as I got into his car in the middle of the woods. "I don't blame you for being angry. I deserve it. I was…a coward. I should've fought for you."_

" _Yeah, why didn't you?" I asked._

" _I was looking for another job so I could leave you, Aria," he said. "I was…looking_ for _you. I thought that if I resigned from Rosewood, that we'd have a chance. Then I saw you with Noel. And I decided I was being selfish, and if you had a chance at being happy without all the complications—"_

" _You really are a jerk, Ezra," I cut him off. "You can't just go around deciding how things are supposed to work out. I mean, you don't get to choose how I feel. Look, whether you believe me or not, I have always been honest with you. But you hiding your feelings from me is just like lying."_

 _I was furious. I'd read that poem and I knew he felt something for me. More than something. He felt everything, just like I did. But instead of being brave enough to tell me that, he'd run away. Like a coward. Thinking that he could decide how I felt for me and alter fate._

" _I was wrong," he said, and leaned in about six inches from my face. "Forgive me."_

 _God, what I wanted to do was just kiss him. But I was too mad. I couldn't do it. I couldn't get past what he'd done._

" _No," I said._

 _Then he leaned in about two inches away from me. I could feel his breath on my face. I could almost taste his lips on mine._

" _Forgive me," he whispered._

 _And I couldn't fight it anymore. He couldn't mess with fate, and neither could I._

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 _It was Ezra's last day at Rosewood High. My father had pulled some strings and gotten him a job as a professor at Hollis College. I'd been terrified of what that meant for us, because for some reason I just didn't see how it was going to work between us when he wasn't here and I didn't see him every day._

" _Aw. Thank you," he said as he opened up the first edition of_ To Kill a Mockingbird _that the class had all chipped in to buy him as a going away gift. I'd picked it out, but he didn't know that. "Wasn't expecting this. To be honest, most of what's happened to me here, I didn't expect. I didn't expect to connect with you the way that I have. I never expected to feel this kind of loss over leaving you. Um…stop me when this gets too maudlin, but I'm not going to forget you. I will remember your voices, your questions, your," he looked straight at me, "…faces. I cherish the time that I've spent here and I'm more grateful than I even know how to say. There's a quote by Joseph Campbell and it goes, 'You must give up the life you had planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.' I thought I knew what that meant. I didn't. 'Til I met you."_

 _And then the bell rang, which was probably a good thing, because by this point he was staring right at me. If he'd been allowed to continue, he might very well have let the cat out of the bag in front of the entire class. He'd come dangerously close already. I knew (and Spencer, Hanna, and Emily clearly did too) he hadn't been talking to the whole class. Maybe he was at first, but the part at the end? The quote? That was for me. He was trying to tell me that he had given up this job because he believed in us and what we could have together. He was giving up the life he'd had planned as a high school teacher in order to have the life that was waiting for him. The life with me._

 _I waited until most everyone had left and ran back to his classroom, hoping I wasn't too late. But his desk was already empty. Like he'd never been there. Then I caught a glimpse out the window, and there he was, putting his boxes in his car. He was still here. I ran outside as fast as my feet could carry me. There were still cars in the parking lot. People could still see. This was downright idiotic. But I didn't care. He had to know that I believed in us too. That I'd understood what he was trying to tell me. I ran up to him._

" _Ezra," I panted, out of breath after the run from the second floor of the building all the way down here to the faculty parking lot._

 _Ezra immediately set the box he had in his hands down and reached out for me. As soon as I got close enough, he picked me up and kissed me like he never had before. Like all of a sudden it wasn't forbidden. Because it wasn't. He wasn't my teacher anymore. Now, he was just the man I loved. I wasn't deluding myself. I knew we couldn't magically be a normal couple now. There was still the matter of figuring out how to tell my parents and the rest of the world about us. But that was a problem for another day. Today, there was just us. Just two people who loved each other more than either of us had thought it was humanly possible to love another person._

################

 _I was sitting on Ezra's couch, and he'd just told me that my father had pulled every last string he had left to get him fired. Telling my parents about us had been a huge mistake. My father had tried to run Ezra out of town, and when Ezra had turned down the job my father had put him up for in New Orleans, he'd just had Ezra fired instead._

" _Basically, they said they no longer offer my class," Ezra was saying as he sat down next to me. "But they'll probably just rename the course and hire somebody who your father likes to teach it."_

" _I swear to you, if I knew that my dad was going to do this…" I started. I wasn't even sure how I was going to finish that sentence. What would I have done if I'd known? How could I have stopped this?_

" _Aria, stop," he interrupted me. "You're not going to break up your family to keep us together. That's not a choice."_

 _I knew where he was coming from, but the thing was, I wasn't the one who had broken up my family. My dad had done that all by himself._

" _What are you going to do?" I asked_

" _I'll…probably head up to my folks' place for a while. Regroup, send out resumes, make cold calls."_

" _When will you be back?" I asked him, but even as the words were leaving my mouth, I had a feeling I already knew the answer to that question. He wasn't coming back._

 _Ezra turned to look at me. "Aria, if I can't teach high school in this town, or college, what's left? It's what I do, and I need to find a place where I can do it."_

 _I couldn't help the tears that fell. I loved him so much, and now he was leaving. And I couldn't help but feel responsible. But I knew I had to act like the adult that he'd always treated me like now. I had to let him go._

" _Look," I said as I wiped away the tears, "wherever that is, they're really lucky to have you."_

 _The look on Ezra's face when I said that made me melt into a big puddle. I'd never thought that someone could look that happy and that sad at the same time._

" _Do you have any idea how much I love you?" he asked, brushing my hair back from my face._

 _I couldn't find any words to say. My mind was a blank. So I just kissed him instead. And in an instant, something changed in the kiss. We both knew where this was headed. I was a little nervous, because it was headed to a place that I'd never gone before, but I trusted him completely. And, as it turned out, my trust wasn't misplaced. He was so sweet and gentle and caring and took things slowly, making sure I felt comfortable and safe. It was the first time every girl deserves and more. So much more. It was more because this wasn't teenage experimentation. It was an act of absolute, complete love. And because of that, no matter what happened to us after tonight, I would never regret this. Because in that moment, all that mattered was how we felt about each other._

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 _It had been over two weeks since Ezra had left to try to pick up the pieces of his broken life. He checked in, but never gave any indication of if or when he was coming back. I'd gotten a text tonight, at the masquerade ball, telling me to go out to the courtyard. Apparently there was a surprise waiting for me. As I walked towards the courtyard, it felt…odd. I felt someone there with me, but I couldn't see anyone. I was starting to get scared. Maybe it was A who had sent that text. It could have been._

" _Hello?" I called nervously._

" _No matter how hard I try," I heard a familiar voice say as he walked out where I could see him, "I can't stay away from you."_

 _I gasped and ran up to him. I honestly hadn't thought I was going to see him again. He just held me tighter than he ever had before._

" _You're back," I said after a few minutes._

 _Ezra kissed the side of my head, still not letting go of me._

" _Yeah, I'm back," he told me._

" _Why? It's not like you had a reason to come back. You can't teach here."_

" _Maybe I can't teach here, but I had one very good reason to come back."_

 _If it was even possible, his arms tightened around me. And I immediately realized what he was saying. He was giving up teaching for me. I was more important to him than his chosen career. I couldn't even wrap my head around this. This was bordering on pure insanity. I pulled back to look at him._

" _You're crazy," I chuckled. "You do know that?"_

 _He laughed and kissed me softly. "I know. But I'd be even crazier if I let you go. Come on, come inside with me. Unless you want to spend this entire dance in the courtyard getting eaten alive by mosquitos."_

 _I giggled as I took Ezra's hand and let him lead me inside. I was more than a little shocked when he led me right to the middle of the dance floor like it was nothing. That was…bold, to say the least. He pulled me in for a dance, but stopped after about thirty seconds. I pulled back to look at him again. Was he having second thoughts?_

" _What's wrong?" I asked._

 _He took a deep breath. "This is our first dance. I want to see you."_

 _And right there, where everyone was watching, he took my mask off, then his. I smiled. He wasn't scared of being seen with me anymore. But I was not prepared at all for what came next. Right there, in public, for everyone to see, he leaned in and kissed me. Time seemed to stand still that night. It was almost too good to be true. I kept expecting to wake up and be back at the Lost Woods Resort, where the girls and I had spent last night, and find out this was a dream. But I never did wake up. Something had changed in him, and he was past hiding our relationship. We were officially, publicly, a couple._

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"Hey," Liam said as I walked into work. "You okay?"

I just smiled a little as I sat down, flash drive in hand. I'd finished the presentation. At about six this morning. Hearing that damn song had stopped me dead in my tracks for about three hours. I couldn't concentrate on anything for three whole hours. I still really couldn't.

I looked at this guy I'd just started seeing and tried to feel something that was even close to what I'd felt for Ezra, but I couldn't. The truth was, if Ezra had shown up and told me he wanted me back, I'd have gone back to him in a heartbeat. He wasn't just my first love. He was the one I'd let get away. If I'd just been braver. If I'd just told him that I wanted to try to make a long-distance relationship work. I knew he would have, if I'd wanted to. Our entire relationship had always been on my terms. He'd always put me and my safety and well-being first, no matter the cost to him.

But not now. Now he had another girlfriend. Nicole. And he was traveling around the world and building houses for poor people with her. He looked so happy in the pictures I'd seen on Facebook. He'd probably forgotten all about me. If we saw each other again, he probably wouldn't fall into a million pieces like I would. If he heard our song, it probably wouldn't have any effect on him at all. It would be just like listening to any other song for him.

Jesus, I was pathetic. Pining over the one that got away. While I had a great guy right here in Boston who actually did want to be with me. A guy that I did like a lot. That was the thing, though.I _liked_ Liam. I _loved_ Ezra. I'd always loved Ezra. And I knew I always would. There would never be a day that went by when I didn't love him. I would go to my grave carrying a torch for him.

"Aria." Liam brought me out of my thoughts. "You alive over there?"

"Sorry," I said, chuckling a little. "I had to pull an all-nighter last night. I was literally putting the finishing touches on my presentation for today and the stupid storm took my power out and fried my computer for about twenty minutes."

"Oh, Jesus. Tell me you got it back up and running."

I held up my flash drive. "Behold, my presentation. The product of two pots of coffee and no sleep. I lost _all_ of my work and had to start completely from scratch."

"That sucks. I'm sorry."

I chuckled again. "Me too. How I'm going to stay awake today, I have no idea."

"Hey, did you see the news this morning? A group of humanitarian aid workers were kidnapped in South America last night. That Fitz guy, your old English teacher, I think his girlfriend was one of them. They were interviewing him."

Well, that had worked better than coffee. I was wide awake now.

"Oh, my God," I said. "That's horrible. What are they doing to try to find them?"

"They can't do anything, apparently. There's no trace of them. No one has any idea where they went."

"I should send Ezra a letter or something," I said, almost without thinking.

"I think it's sweet that you've stayed in touch with your favorite teacher over the years," he said, kissing me on the cheek.

"Well, we always had a lot in common," I said, trying not to give too much away. I wasn't ready to go into this with Liam. I knew I'd have to someday, but someday was not today.

That night, when no one was around to see the tears that were sure to fall, I watched the news footage. It was the first time I'd heard Ezra's voice in almost five years. And it broke my heart. He looked…completely broken. He'd fought so hard to save me, time and again, but this time it was like there was no fight left in him. No matter what had happened with us and where we had ended up in our lives, I never wanted anything like that to happen to him. I couldn't imagine what he was going through.

Wait. Yes, I could. Because I'd almost lost him once. And he'd almost lost me too.

################

 _My friends and I had just found out that Alison was alive. A had followed us to New York City, where we had come to meet her. We'd tried to run from A, but we ended up trapped on a rooftop with nowhere to run. Suddenly a door opened, and the figure I saw walking out wasn't A._

" _Ezra?" I asked, walking towards him._

 _He looked at me, and he looked completely terrified. I knew why he was here. I knew he was trying to protect us because he thought he could win me back if he helped us. Maybe it would work, and maybe it wouldn't. I honestly wasn't sure. I was having a hard time getting past the fact that he'd known who I was when we first met that day in the bar. I was starting to believe what he'd said about not knowing he was going to fall in love with me and stopping his research when he knew he was starting to feel something. He'd done everything he could to prove it to me. But it was still a lot to swallow._

 _I couldn't think about that right now, though. Because not thirty seconds later, A came walking out of a different door, holding a gun._

" _Hey, hey!" Ezra shouted. "Hey. I know who you are, and the police are on their way."_

 _If I hadn't been so terrified, I would have laughed. Did he actually think that was going to stop A?_

 _A fired the gun in his direction, and he ducked just in time. Then the gun was pointed at us. And immediately, without hesitation, Ezra jumped in front of us and started wrestling with A for the gun. It went on for what seemed like forever and only a second at the same time. We heard a gunshot, but we couldn't tell where the bullet had gone. We all screamed._

" _Ezra!" I screamed, without thinking._

 _Then all of a sudden, he somehow gained the upper hand and knocked A down, kicking the gun out of A's hand. Hanna immediately grabbed it as A stood back up, clearly pissed off._

" _Take off your mask!" Spencer yelled._

" _Now!" Hanna said, aiming the gun right at A._

" _Take it off!" I screamed._

 _A reached for the mask, but then broke into a run and jumped from the roof we were on to the next roof over. We ran over to watch, and A easily climbed up onto the roof from a hanging position and walked into a door._

" _There is no way that's your mom," Hanna panted._

 _I looked over at Ezra, and he was just standing there staring at the moon over the New York skyline._

" _Ezra?" I asked as I walked up to him._

" _It's so beautiful," he said, sounding a little dazed._

 _Then he turned around and looked down, opening up his jacket. And then I saw where the stray bullet had gone earlier. Right into his stomach._

" _No!" I yelled, running to catch him as he fell down on the hard concrete. "No…"_

 _All of my friends ran over._

" _Oh my God," Emily sobbed._

" _Oh my God!" Alison wailed. "Ezra!"_

 _I couldn't look away from him. Right now, in this moment, nothing he'd done seemed to matter anymore. Right now, I only knew one thing. And that was that I couldn't lose him. Not like this._

 _And then he looked at me. I saw so much love and regret in his eyes, and I just started crying more._

" _I'm sorry…" he whispered, reaching out to touch my face._

" _No," I said. He couldn't waste his strength like this. There would be time for apologies later. "Don't…"_

 _And then he started to blink. He was fading. Fast. He might not make it out of this._

" _You stay awake, do you hear me?" I screamed at him. "No, don't you dare close your eyes!"_

" _Somebody call for help!" Alison screamed._

 _And then he closed his eyes. And I didn't know if he was dead or alive._

" _No!" I screamed. "Ezra! Ezra!"_

 _After that night, I knew I had to at least try to forgive Ezra for what he'd done. He came back to Rosewood, and his sole goal in life was to help me however he could. To win me back, somehow. And eventually, he succeeded. It took a while, and a slip or two, for me to really forgive him, but I was eventually convinced of what he'd tried to tell me all along. He never planned on falling in love with me. He'd lied to me about a lot of things, but that was the one thing that he never once lied about. Ezra's feelings for me were real. And so were my feelings for him._

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 _I was choking on the smoke as I was running around the burning dollhouse almost aimlessly, trying to find an escape. If I didn't get out of here soon, smoke inhalation would kill me before the fire would._

" _Aria!" I heard a familiar voice shout, sounding panicked._

 _I tried to run in the direction of the voice, but I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. And then, suddenly, a door opened. And Ezra was standing there waiting for me with open arms. I ran into them, crying hysterically, and he lifted me up in a tight hug that immediately assured me I was safe from the horrors I'd endured for weeks._

" _You're okay," he sighed in relief, talking as much to himself as he was to me. "I thought I lost you."_

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I wrote Ezra a letter and sent it to his address at the Brew in Rosewood. I knew he'd go back there eventually. And he would get it when he got back. He'd know that I'd seen the news and was concerned about him. I didn't even care if he responded. I just wanted him to know that I still cared, whether or not he reciprocated any of those feelings anymore. And that I would always be here for him if he ever needed me.

 _One Year Later_

I sat in the Hollis Bar and Grille, where Ezra and I had first met. This time I was trying to find the faceless guy with an English accent who was making all of our lives a living hell right now. And I was trying to figure out what in the hell I was supposed to do next.

Ezra and I had gotten close again. Really close. I'd thought he was going off the deep end and I'd started ghost writing his next book for him, picking up where he'd left off. It was a brilliant plan…until he'd come back from God knows where with the next three chapters. I'd had to come clean with him, but rather than being furious at me, he just called my boss and pitched me as a co-author. And to my surprise, she'd gone for it. We'd churned out the entire book in a matter of weeks, and Jillian had eaten it up with a spoon. This was happening. I was about to be a published author, and it was thanks to him.

And then we'd had a slip. Or maybe not. I didn't know what the hell it was. It felt like more than a slip. He'd even said "I love you" in the middle of it. More than once. God, I was confused. Maybe I was just wanting to see something where there was nothing. Maybe we were just friends with benefits. Friends could still love each other. But still, that was a chance, right? A chance for more? I was seriously ready to break up with Liam right now, but I had to know first. I had to know what I was breaking up with him for. If there was even anything to break up with him for.

Jesus, I wasn't thinking clearly. It was the fact that Hanna had been taken hostage and we didn't know where the hell she was. And she looked so scared in the picture A.D. had sent taunting us. Clearly that was why my head wasn't screwed on straight.

That was when I heard it. That damn song again. B-26. I turned around and looked at the jukebox, almost positive that Ezra had followed me here and played it, trying to tell me something. But when I looked, it was just some random college-aged guy.

All of a sudden, I didn't need to know what was happening between Ezra and I right at this second. He clearly felt something for me and I knew he was here for me. And right now, that was enough. I just needed to be with him tonight. I needed him to help me through this nightmare, regardless of what happened after that.

I put money down on the bar and sprinted out the door and ran all the way back to the Brew. I unlocked the door with the key he'd given me, making sure to lock it behind me, and went up the stairs to his loft and knocked. He answered almost immediately.

"I don't need to know what we are tonight," I told him. "I just need to be with you."

I walked in the door and was immediately enveloped in an embrace. And I thought I heard something familiar coming from his bedroom upstairs, but I couldn't be sure.

"Aria," he whispered, tightening his arms around me.

I tightened my embrace too. I didn't ever want to let go. I was so confused about so many things right now, but this was the one thing I was sure of. He was the one thing I was sure of.

"Do you want to start again?" he asked softly.

I realized then that he had been waiting for _me_ to tell _him_ what we were. Our entire relationship had always been on my terms. He had always put his happiness and his wants and needs second to mine. And this time was no different. He wanted me back, but he was waiting for me to make the first move. Because he was going to respect what I wanted, no matter what it was.

"Yes," I answered, my voice raspy from all the tears I'd shed today.

He pulled back just a little. Just enough to give me a soft, sweet kiss.

"You really do need to try and sleep," he said, still holding my face in his hands. "You look like you're about to pass out standing there. Come on."

I followed him up to his bedroom, knowing full well that all I was going to do was sleep. He was right. I was too exhausted for anything else. And I did have to break up with Liam before I could really start things up with Ezra again. I owed Liam that much.

As we walked into his room, I realized I'd been right. I'd heard our song coming from up here. He'd been playing our song. It ended, and then it started again. He hadn't just been playing it; he'd been playing it on repeat. It did still mean something to him too.

"God, I love this song," I said as he handed me my favorite t-shirt of his to sleep in. He'd always been one to remember the little things like that.

Ezra smiled the same smile that had killed me ever since the day I met him. The one that made me go weak at the knees and gave me butterflies in my stomach.

"B-26," he said simply.

He didn't need to say anything else. I knew.

I laughed a little as I kissed him again. He had no idea. He had no idea that this song hadn't only brought us together when we first met; it had brought us back together now too. I'd never realized that a song could hold so much power until I met him.


End file.
